Whatever you think of the Virginia Supreme Court ruling on redistricting, it did bring some finality to the state’s redistricting drama — at least for a while.
While we no longer get to write about the short-lived “lobster district,” there are plenty of other political questions swirling around Virginia. Here are 10 of them.
1. How is the relationship between Spanberger and the General Assembly going to shake out?
If redistricting hadn’t taken up so much oxygen, this is the story we’d have been talking about: Our Democratic governor and our Democratic General Assembly could be on a collision course on some key issues. Abigail Spanberger vetoed eight bills before last month’s reconvened session. That’s not many compared to the 201 that Glenn Youngkin sent back his third year or the 196 he nixed his fourth year. Youngkin, though, was a Republican dealing with a Democratic legislature, so nobody should have been surprised at how many vetoes he had. Here we have Democrats in control of both the governorship and the General Assembly, but that doesn’t always mean they agree. Still, the last time we had a Democratic trifecta, Ralph Northam vetoed four bills one year and none the next. Spanberger has already doubled that number and appears set to add more.
Meanwhile, state Sen. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, has been trolling Spanberger mercilessly on social media, and Lucas has the power to complicate the governor’s life if she chooses to. In fact, she already has — by holding up the state budget in a dispute over how data centers should be taxed. Over the next month, we need to watch to see how each acts and reacts. Spoiler alert: Just because she’s governor doesn’t mean Spanberger has the upper hand.
2. How many bills will Spanberger veto, and which ones?
Besides vetoing eight bills before the reconvened session, Spanberger sent back some pretty extensive rewrites in the form of proposed amendments to bills. Remarkably, the legislature rejected about two dozen of those, leaving Spanberger in the position of having to decide whether to sign a bill she wanted revised — or veto the bill entirely, even though, in many cases, she’s endorsed the concept behind the bill. These bills include some high-priority items for Democrats: collective bargaining for public employees, legalizing cannabis sales, banning assault weapons. In each case, Spanberger has endorsed the idea, but has problems with the details of the bills before her. She made that clear when she vetoed the collective bargaining bill — veto No. 9, a move that Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax County, called “disappointing and perplexing.”
This is where policy and politics intertwine. Politically, Spanberger has to veto some of these bills simply to make it clear she’s the one in charge. If the legislature thinks it can reject her amendments, and she acquiesces to the bill she wanted revised, the General Assembly won’t take her seriously for the rest of her term. However, there’s also a political risk of enraging some of her supporters who aren’t that focused on the details and thought that electing a Democratic governor meant they would get some of these proposals turned into law. This is what’s happening now on the collective bargaining bill and organized labor. If you think that’s a dilemma, read on.
3. When will we get a deal on data center taxation, and what will it look like?
Lucas wants to see more revenue and has been fixated on ending the state’s tax breaks for data centers eight years early — in 2027 rather than 2035. Some see these abatements as nothing more than a giveaway to tech companies; others see them as an incentive that forgoes $1.9 billion in revenue to get $9.1 billion in state GDP from data centers. I’ve dealt with that before, so if you want to delve into those arguments, check out my previous column. (By the way, that $9.1 billion came in a 2024 report from the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission, so is likely higher now. A report commissioned by the Data Center Coalition that was released Monday put the figure at $29.9 billion.)
The reality is the state budget for the next two years can’t be put together until budget negotiators know how much revenue the state should expect — so we won’t get a budget until there’s a resolution, one way or another, to the data center tax abatement issue.
4. Will a deal on data center tax abatements save or endanger a possible 2,500 jobs in Pittsylvania County?
Some warn that ending the data center tax abatements early runs the risk of giving Virginia the reputation of a state that doesn’t keep its word; others counter that these aren’t contracts, the state is free to change its policy. However, there’s another wrinkle to the data center tax debate. Secretary of Finance Mark Sickles has specifically warned that abolishing the abatements early would probably kill a deal for a data center complex in Pittsylvania County that would bring 2,500 permanent jobs over the next 30 years to a part of the state that sorely needs them. It’s unclear how seriously the legislators pushing for doing away with the tax center tax breaks take that threat — after all, Pittsylvania is nowhere near their districts. Some of their constituents clamoring to stick it to data centers may have never even heard of Pittsylvania. I’ve asked Lucas’ office about the Pittsylvania project and have never gotten a reply. However, the performance agreement that the Danville-Pittsylvania Regional Industrial Facility Authority took up Monday specifically includes a mention that the deal is predicated on the state tax abatements staying in place. (See the story by Cardinal’s Grace Mamon for more on that.)
5. When are we going to get a budget — and what will be in it?
There are other complications to the budget besides data centers — namely Lucas, the legislative process and the calendar. We should have had a budget passed before the General Assembly adjourned in early March. We didn’t, and we still don’t. In fact, no real negotiations have taken place. Legislators are waiting for two things: a) a deal on data center taxation and b) Spanberger’s May 23 deadline to act on those bills the legislature sent back to her. This is where power tips toward the legislature, especially the canny Lucas. If the governor vetoes some bills that legislators care deeply about, they could just write the legislation into the budget, a process known as “legislating through the budget.” That’s frowned upon, but still practiced. The legislature also is under no obligation to act quickly. There’s talk that legislators could hold onto the budget until late June, then pass a spending plan, leaving Spanberger with essentially no time to make the customary changes a governor does. Yes, you read that right: Lucas (and other legislators) could back the governor into a corner. Sign this budget that you may not like, or let the state enter the new fiscal year without one. These are some of the scenarios the governor needs to consider as she weighs whether to veto certain bills. Spanberger may have the fancy house and fancy title, but Lucas has the power to put the governor in an uncomfortable position.
6. Will Jones find a way to get involved with the Lynchburg Republican firehouse primary?
A recent state law — often known as “Helmer’s Law,” for its sponsor, Del. Dan Helmer, D-Fairfax County — comes very close to requiring parties to hold state-run primaries to pick nominees for anything other than a special election. Republicans have never liked that law, and Lynchburg Republicans really haven’t liked it. They see that as an infringement on party business, and worry that, because Virginia doesn’t register voters by party, a Republican primary could be infiltrated by non-Republicans, be they independents or even Democrats.
To pick nominees for the city council this year, Lynchburg Republicans have devised a party-run process — commonly known as a firehouse primary — that they believe will satisfy the law. Will it? Technically, it will unless and until Attorney General Jay Jones finds a way to get it ruled otherwise. Helmer has requested a formal attorney general’s opinion, which Jones has yet to deliver. I explored the options available in a previous column. We’re now 11 days out from the Republican event. Those planning to participate in the event (which involves a “screening” by the party to determine if prospective voters really are Republicans) might like to know if their vote will count or not.
If it does, then Lynchburg Republicans will have created a precedent that other Republican units across Virginia can emulate. The argument for Jones trying to find a way to intervene: He wouldn’t want Republicans to establish what Democrats might see as a loophole. And after losing the redistricting case, he might be looking for an election-oriented victory. The argument against: It may be hard to construct a legal case against the Lynchburg Republican plan, especially if Jones can’t find a specific person who was injured by the plan — and what Republican is likely to complain to a Democratic attorney general? Democrats also may not be particularly concerned about what Lynchburg Republicans do, especially if they could just come back next year and revise the law to close what they see as a loophole.
In any case, we’ve already updated the Lynchburg page on our Voter Guide and sent questionnaires to the 10 Republican candidates in the May 30 firehouse primary. Seven have responded; you can find their answers here.
7. Who will make the ballot for congressional primaries?
Because of redistricting, filing deadlines are all over the place this year. The filing deadline for party nominations for U.S. Senate and local races has already passed; where there are multiple candidates, those nominations are now set for Aug. 4 primaries. Put another way, we know that on Aug. 4 we’ll have a statewide Republican primary for the U.S. Senate, as well as Democratic primaries for certain local offices, including Montgomery County sheriff and Roanoke city council. (You can find the lists of those candidates on the Montgomery County and Roanoke pages of our Voter Guide.)
What we don’t know yet is who will make the ballot for any congressional primaries. That deadline is May 26. We’ll have a lot more clarity after that.
8. Will the redistricting amendment come up again in 2027?
The key thing to remember about the Virginia case is that the court ruling wasn’t based on the map or the basic concept of redrawing lines, but simply on the timing of when the legislature first passed the amendment. By waiting until after early voting in 2025 was underway, the General Assembly didn’t adhere to the constitutional rules that require the legislature to pass an amendment twice, with a state election in between. By the court’s ruling, the legislature simply waited too long because the election was already underway. That means the concept of a new redistricting isn’t unconstitutional, only the timing was.
After the Virginia referendum was tossed out, U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries vowed a major push for Democratic state legislatures to redraw congressional lines for the 2028 elections. That sets up this potential sequence. Early 2027: The General Assembly — the same set of legislators that passed the amendment this year — could pass the amendment again. Fall 2027: legislative elections, which count as the intervening election. Early 2028: The new General Assembly passes the amendment again. April 2028: another special election. Fall 2028: The new congressional map goes into effect, so the “lobster district,” as that odd-looking 7th District was called, could be revived.
This sequence depends on two things.
First, Democrats still need to be enthusiastic about redistricting. If they win big this November, will they still be fired up about drawing new maps? If they lose, they will likely be even more inspired.
Second, Democrats need to win the General Assembly again in November 2027. If they lose even one chamber, redistricting won’t happen.
9. Will Democrats hand Republicans a campaign issue by booting a Supreme Court justice?
Virginia is one of just two states (South Carolina is the other) where Supreme Court justices are elected by the legislature. Those justices are also elected for specific terms, not for life the way federal judges are. The upshot of all that: The author of the majority opinion that invalidated the April 21 special election — on the grounds that the General Assembly didn’t follow the rules in placing the election on the ballot — will now face that same General Assembly when he comes up for reappointment in January 2027. A fellow justice, who joined in that opinion, will be up for reelection in 2028.
If Arthur Kelsey isn’t reelected in January, it will be seen as political retribution and hand Republicans a talking point for the fall elections. Are Democrats prepared to take that risk? One reason they might: So many districts are “safe” for one party or another; the real question is whether and how that issue would play in a handful of swing districts. That brings us to this:
10. How will redistricting play out in the 2027 legislative elections?
Redistricting didn’t come up early enough last fall to be a factor in the elections. Now it’s front and center — and both sides already know how the vote went. If Democrats pass another redistricting amendment in early 2027, that sets up redistricting as yet another election issue for the fall legislative races. For the same reason as above, that won’t be a problem for many legislators on either side, but it could be a complicating factor for some Democratic incumbents in potentially vulnerable districts. They’ll have to face a question they didn’t last year.
It’ll be a while before we get answers to these 10 questions, but you only have to wait until Friday to get more political news and analysis, delivered in West of the Capital, our weekly political newsletter. Sign up here:
